Where There's A Will, There's A Way! Runaway Pumpkins by Teresa Bateman

It's the first field trip of the year. Kids are hustling; teachers are bustling! The bus is here! Children cheer!

WINDOWS FOG AS FACES GRIN!

THE FIELD TRIP'S READY TO BEGIN!
It's down the road and round the bend, and then the visit to the pumpkin patch begins. The class spreads out, each one hoping to find the perfect pumpkin for their own jack o' lantern, the one that could win first prize at the Autumn Fair. But how can they choose when there are so many there?

BUMPY, LUMPY, STRAIGHT OR CURVY. REALLY ROUND OR TOPYSY TURVY!

So many pumpkins! Better be quick. Hurry and scurry, each one must pick!
Finally the bus driver stows each chosen pumpkin away, latched inside the big bins under the bus. The kids thank the farmer and climb aboard, and waving to the pigs watching from their stye, they pull away and head back to school.
Brains are busy; lots of possibilities there! Which one will win in the Autumn Fair?
Silly, scary, ghouly, goofy? Frightful, artsy, simple, spoofy?
But just as the kids wish the bus would go faster, the latches come loose and there is a disaster! Their precious pumpkins roll out with a smash and a crash. Now there are no pumpkins, just seeds, chunks, and pieces. The only pumpkin left is the huge one tied to the roof of the bus. While the bus drives on, midst gloom and doom, people come out to view the scene and begin to clean.

ALL A-TIZZY, THEY TAKE THEM HOME AND THEN ALL GET BUSY!

Back at school, the kids make the best of it, pitching in to make that huge pumpkin--their first group project--good enough to win the prize at the Autumn Fair.
But at the Fair...

SURPRISE! PUMPKIN CUPCAKES, COOKIES, CAKES AND PIES!

And at the Autumn fair, there's plenty to share in Teresa Bateman's latest, Runaway Pumpkins (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2020). Teresa Bateman is the doyenne of rhyming stories, and this making-the-best-of-it tale is a jolly addition to pumpkin-time picture books for primary readers. And then there are plenty more where this one came from! (See more here).

All Aboard the Magic School... Shuttle? Field Trip to the Moon by John Hare

What are the rules for a primary-grade field trip to the moon?

Rule One is familiar: Stay with the group!

But when this class, clad in their spacesuits, climb onto the big yellow school shuttle and zoom off for a field trip to the moon's surface, as we might predict, one little space scholar stops off to do some sketches of moon rock specimens and dozes off while the class hikes off into the moonscape.

And when sleeper awakes and hastily follows the class's footprints in the moon dust, she arrives just in time to see the big yellow space bus already heading back to Earth! Oh, no!

Dejected, the visitor sits down and pulls out a big yellow box of markers and begins to sketch a hopeful rainbow while waiting for rescue. But, what is that with the one big eyeball scoping out their visitor from behind a chunk of moon junk?

The curious moon creatures are fascinated with the concept of drawing, so the marooned kid passes out markers, and they all begin to create colorful self-portraits on the gray moon rocks.

And when the yellow shuttle returns for the little lag-behind moon scholar, the teacher hugs her and then makes her scrub the rocks clean from what looks like lunar graffiti.

Not since Ms. Frizzle took her class for a little moon stroll in The Magic School Bus Takes a Moonwalk (Scholastic Reader, Level 2)) has there been such an an intriguing field trip in earth's orbit. In John Hare's terrific debut picture book, Field Trip to the Moon (Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House Books, 2019), his illustrations tell the story wordlessly, setting the whole field trip off in shades of moon gray with spots of color, particularly in the big yellow box of markers, set against the deep black of space beyond. Even preschoolers can "read" the body language and the pathos of the little left-behind student, in a "story" that will be a favorite. "A close encounter of the best kind," says Kirkus Reviews.

He Made Me Do It! The Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry

None of this stuff would have happened if I hadn't been sitting next to Matthew Diaz.

Don't get me wrong. Matt is my best friend. But he can be an idiot. When we were in kindergarten, pretty much all the boys were idiots, so he didn't stand out so much, and we became best friends. So now, even though we're in eighth grade, and he's sometimes unbelievably annoying, I'm kind of stuck with him.

That's why I ended up sitting next to him on the plane on the class trip.

It's time for the customary Miami middle school trip to Washington, D.C., and Wyatt Palmer's hopes are mostly centered around trying to win a smile from his crush, the tall and athletic Suzana, and spending a few days away from his sometimes embarrassing parents, especially his father, whose insistence on fetching the morning newspaper in his antique holey boxers gets him chased by an alligator, videoed by the inevitable neighbor's phone, and an appearance on a humiliating segment of the evening news. But Wyatt hopes that's all behind as he and Matt board the plane for the nation's capital.

But then two strange guys take their seats behind them.

One is small, wearing purple Crocs, and clinging to a backpack. The other is big, bald, with snake tattoos, blocking the aisle trying to stuff an odd-shaped duffle into the overhead compartment. The flight attendant, whom Wyatt describes as old enough to have been the Wright brothers' flight attendant, tells Croc Guy to stow his backpack under his seat for take-off. He refuses.

"Is very important."

Matt, who I believe I already mentioned can be an idiot, said--too loud, as usual--"What do you think he has in that bag? A missile?" The big guy looked down at Matt like he was about to stuff him into the overhead space.

Oblivious to the fact that he and Wyatt are marked men, Matt is convinced that the suspicious pair are terrorists, and reaching under his seat, he manages to fish a suspicious looking gizmo out of Croc Guy's backpack. A bit of googling at the hotel by their roommate Victor reveals that the device is indeed covert contraband, a stolen laser controller that jams incoming missiles. Just as the kids realize that Tattoo and Croc Guy must be terrorists on a deadly mission, the bad guys snatch Matt and hold him for ransom until the others fork over the jammer. The gorgeous and game Suzana is recruited to distract their clueless teacher to cover for Matt's absence on the tour bus, and she's the one who figures out that the two terrorists must be planning to assassinate the President and a visiting premier from Gabakistan in a Rose Garden press conference. The kids need give their chaperones the slip, rescue Matt, and foil the terrorists. They've got their cell phones, the terrorists' gizmo, and Suzana's extreme karate skills. What they seriously need is a plan.

And the chase is on, in Pulitzer-winning humorist Dave Barry's hilarious just-published killer-diller thriller, The Worst Class Trip Ever (Hyperion Books, 2015), which spotlights five eighth-graders in a plot to save the world and ends with Wyatt piloting a giant dragon kite, the missile jammer in hand, over the Rose Garden and.... Well, you gotta be there all the way to savor every comic turn of master humorist Dave Barry's plot in this page-turning, goofball adventure.

Barry is a blast, and middle readers who dote on his sometimes co-author Carl Hiaasen's Newbery winner Hoot and his top-selling eco-adventures Flush, Scat; Chomp, and Skink--No Surrender, (see reviews here) will find this one just the ticket for a literary tour that will end field trip boredom and the end-of-term blahs.